London theatre critic Michael Billington, who has just published a 50-year history of the art form, believes that actors and playwrights serve as aids to societal change. “Theatre rarely topples governments or incites direct action. Margaret Thatcher survived the barbs of British dramatists, and Rupert Murdoch was not shamed into shedding his monopolistic powers by the success of David Hare and Howard Brenton’s Pravda. What theatre can do is shift attitudes, articulate discontent, and reflect, often with microscopic accuracy, the mood of the nation.”